Tag: Federal budget of Russia

That’s right, it is budget reply day, where Bill Shorten will lay out Labor’s economic plan. We’ll be back with that, and everything else that happens tomorrow bright and early, so make sure you get your rest. For anyone who missed it, we are heading to a super Saturday of byelections, probably on 16 June, where Labor will fight to keep Perth, Fremantle (where the Greens may pose a threat) Braddon and Longman (which will be the big contest) and the Liberals will attempt to wrestle Mayo from Centre Alliance. The campaigning has begun. The budget seems like it was delivered a lifetime ago. No doubt we will be back on it tomorrow though. Won’t that be exciting? I know I can’t wait. A big thank you to Mike Bowers, for dragging my carcass through the day, and to the Guardian brains trust. As always, a big thank you to you for reading, and for sticking through our technical difficulties.

"That means bigger taxes on middle Australians, year after year. "It's not a magic number, or some sort of fundamental law. It seems more like politics than economics." The remarks by Professor Holden, a strong supporter of the Coalition's corporate tax cuts, have been echoed by other economists after the government vowed to formalise the tax-to-GDP cap as a new core fiscal rule in Tuesday's budget. "So if Labor wants to increase the overall tax burden in the economy at a cost to growth and jobs then they would have to formally change the fiscal strategy settings." "There are two sides to the budget – revenue and spending – and imposing a speed limit on one but not the other is fraught with risk," he warned. "Twenty-three-point-nine per cent of GDP is a decent tax speed limit in its own right – a worthy objective – but it's above the long-term average tax take. "It was almost plucked out of thin air. Who says the average during the Howard years is the optimal figure? "There was meant to be a rule that any windfall gains be applied to reducing debt and deficits, and clearly that's not going to happen this time."